1919 German legislative election
Federal elections were held in Germany on 26 February 1919, although members of the standing army in the east voted for their representatives only on 3 March. The elections were the only elections held in the newly established Weimar Republic following the Great War. Elections would be suspended in May with the onset of the German Civil War. It was the first German election held using proportional representation and with women's suffrage. It is also reckoned as the first truly free and fair all-German election, as it was the first to be held after the scrapping of the old constituencies that grossly over-represented rural areas. The voting age was lowered to 20, down from 25 which it had been in the Reichstag election of 1912. Austrian citizens living in Germany were allowed to vote, in the same way that German citizens living in Austria were also allowed to vote in the Austrian Constitutional Assembly election in the same year. From its inaugural session on 12 March, the National Assembly (Nationalversammlung) functioned as both a constituent assembly and unicameral legislature. On 15 March, provisional Reichspräsident (President) Friedrich Ebert appointed Philipp Scheidemann Reichsministerpräsident. ''Scheidemann's government replaced the revolutionary ''Rat der Volksbeauftragten (Council of the People's Deputies). The supporting parties of the "Weimar Coalition" (SPD, Zentrum and DDP) together won 55.7% of the votes cast, which was widely considered disappointing. Voter turnout was 83.0%. The elections were initially scheduled to be held in January. However, the USPD was able to use their position within the Council of the People's Deputies to force a delay amidst chaos in Berlin. This gave crucial time for the USPD and the newly founded KPD to prepare for the elections. Although the elections were held with the intention to spite the revolutionaries in the KPD and USPD, who had preferred council based rule, the results reflected unexpected levels of support for the newly established KPD. Through championing workers rights and revolutionary council based socialism, the KPD was placed as the primary opposition party in parliament alongside its allies in the USPD. The months following the election would see serious cracks emerge in the Weimar Coalition. More radical elements of the SPD put up opposition to the coalition, and the minority DNVP refused to form an alliance in opposition to the KPD due to their demands being refused. Alongside this, the period would see economic instability rise, and workers strikes would be met with increasing hostility from the SPD-led government, resulting in major divisions which would see many politicians and supporters of the party defect to the KPD and USPD. Notably, there was a large strike in the Ruhr organized by a united front of the KPD, USPD and FDvG with over 300,000 participants that had concluded less than a week before the election. SPD delegates opposed the strike and supported the Freikorps, right-wing paramilitaries, as they had done in many previous strikes, bringing much distrust among workers in the region and beyond. By May of 1919, public support among the German working population had increasingly come to favor the KPD and USPD. The USPD would see its moderate leader, Hugo Haase, replaced in March in favor of more radical elements led by Emil Barth. KPD and USPD parliament members would walk out in protest on April 5th after being censured by the SPD, and would, in defiance, hold the 2nd German Congress of Workers' and Soldiers' Councils from April 19th to April 21st. The KPD would subsequently go forward with previously planned mass strikes leading up to May Day involving over 5,000,000 workers throughout the following week, culminating in a mass armed uprising in Berlin on May 1st, supported by a large amount of the army, sparking the German Civil War. Results